How coming-out videos are striking a chord

“I’ve known I was different but it’s only now that I have this kind of clarity to understand what I identify as. I definitely identify as a girl, as a woman,” Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju, 21, tells the audience. The soothing background music in the YouTube video is interrupted by a record scratch sound effect, and she adds: “Okay, so that sounds extremely pretty, poetic and philosophical, almost like you pop a pill, go to sleep a boy and wake up a gorgeous woman the next day. But, this is India, nothing works like that.”


As a medical student and transgender woman, she is in a unique position to talk others through the ins and outs of transitioning such as the difficulties of sex reassignment surgery.

Gummaraju is one of the many

Indian LGBTQ YouTubers

who is using video to talk about a host of experiences such as the struggles of coming out, parental reactions, being in a relationship. Some are video blogs where the person just talks into the camera, others are comedy skits (such as a spoof on homophobic comments) and events, and portrayals of a day in their lives. Coming out videos are quite common across the globe but haven’t made their way to India until recently. British Olympic diver Tom Daley famously came out on YouTube, in a video that garnered 12 million views.

The reason Gummaraju is documenting her trans life on the internet is because much of her own information came from western YouTubers which, while helpful, wasn’t relatable. “They can’t help you feel better about being called a ‘chhakka’,” she says.

Gopu Changarathil is a Japan-based vlogger who grew up in a small town in Kerala. Changarathil has a rather simple set-up; it’s just him talking into a camera in his room. What he lacks in slickness, he makes up in honesty. He says, “I didn’t find many Indian YouTubers talking about things that really matter. I wanted to see the guy next door talking openly about what it means to be queer, what it means to be sexually assaulted.” So, he became that guy.

Until the age of 15, he thought he was the only gay person in the whole world. Then he met a gay man from his part of Kerala. “Seeing someone from my district, speaking my language, who shared my experiences, it was like fireworks went off in my brain. It validated that it was okay,” he says.

Many videos focus on the ordinariness of everyday life. Gummaraju’s videos show her playfully quizzing her family on terms relating to gender and sexual identity, and going through a day in her life at

medical school

. “The point was to show people that even though we have our unique struggles, we’re also just like everyone else. It’s the same boring lectures, gossiping with friends, it’s just normal life.”

Dharti Patel’s video about how to come out talks people through the things they should say to their parents, and points out the importance of financial independence. “If you don’t know how your family will react, it’s important to be financially independent. Even if they throw you out of the house, which in most cases is unlikely, you will survive,” she says. The 25-year-old, whose videos have garnered over 200,000 views, has also made videos with her girlfriend of five years — such as a comedy sketch titled ‘Lesbian girlfriend: expectation vs reality’. She adds: “YouTube has started to make steps to support LGBTQ creators. Earlier, my videos were not considered ‘advertiser-friendly’, but in my last few videos there are ads before it, which means I can monetise my channel.”

While the YouTubers have come out, the comments are mostly from closeted Indians — expressing gratitude, hope, and the occasional flirtatious message. YouTuber Lalit Paul says it made his “heart melt” to know that he could help people. The 23-year-old Indian-Canadian has made videos about his experiences as a gay man in a Punjabi family, and has even opened up about being molested as a child. His coming out video has 12,000 views. “After posting my coming-out video, many Indian men and women messaged me on Instagram asking for advice on how they can come out,” he says.

LGBTQ activist

Harish Iyer

says that every coming out story starts a chain reaction. He says, “I came out on national television many years back, and that video is now on YouTube. Till date, people use that as a reference to say it helped them. People who are out have the responsibility to put their hand in the same

black hole

that they were stuck in and hold the torch for another person to pull them out. YouTube videos are that torch.”